One or more aspects of the disclosed embodiments relate to a method of profiling a number of times that an address of a semiconductor is accessed and a profiling circuit using the same.
A dynamic random access memory (DRAM) is a memory device in which electric charges are stored in a capacitor included in each of a plurality of memory cells. Electric charges stored in the capacitor of each of the plurality of memory cells are lost due to leakage. Thus, the plurality of memory cells should be periodically refreshed to retain data stored therein.
When an address and a command are input to the DRAM, the DRAM is capable of accessing a memory cell corresponding to the address and performing an operation corresponding to the command on the memory cell. When a specific address is repeatedly input to the DRAM and a specific memory cell (hereinafter referred to as a ‘concentrated memory cell’) is thus accessed more frequently than other memory cells, dynamic noise increases in neighboring cells of the concentrated memory cell, thereby decreasing cell retention times of the neighboring cells. Thus, the neighboring cells should be more frequently refreshed to retain data stored therein. When an address of the concentrated memory cell (hereinafter referred to as a ‘concentrated address’) is detected, a frequency of refreshing the neighboring cells of the concentrated memory cell per unit time may be increased.
When the number of bits in each of addresses is i (i denotes a natural number), a concentrated address may be detected by profiling numbers of times that all the addresses are accessed by counting the numbers of times the addresses are input. However, this method is difficult to actually perform, since 2′ counters are needed.